This is a unique challenge blog where we are inspired by and focus on the Vintage; shabby; mixed-media; art journaling; industrial, timeworn and steampunk genres and encompass the talent, flair, expertise and ideas of many artists that we are inspired by. We welcome all types of projects - cards, journaling, assemblage, layouts, albums, atcs, altered art in fact whatever you want to share (as long as it is in good taste).

Friday, 23 June 2017

Guest Friday with the amazingly talented Claudia

Welcome everyone to our special guest spot for June and we have the ever amazing and talented Claudia with us today. I am sure many of you know Claudia and her fabulous art and we are blessed to have her here with an amazing project and fabulous post with process steps showing how she put it together. I'll let her introduce herself.

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Hi, hello and a joyful "Servus!" from my wonderful hometown Vienna! Claudia here (some of my former pupils may well have recognised me from the baby photo above as it shows me - already raising my "famous and much feared eyebrow" and giving that "What is it you're doing there?"-look at that young age...giggle).

I feel so blessed and proud to be able to share some creative fun with you today as a Guest Creative Guide for the wonderful "Canvas" challenge hosted by lovely Nikki! Being part of the amazing Creative Crew from A Vintage Journey - even if it is just for this veeery limited time - is an honour, great fun and such a pleasure!

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A few words about myself: I am married to the most wonderful man in the world and I have the most wonderful son you can think of and we all live in a flat near the Danube in beautiful Vienna with our lovely dog girlie Bluna, two budgies and some fish in a tank. I have studied arts and have worked as an arts and wood works teacher before I became a stay at home mom and freelance artist, designer and writer for several manufacturers and creative magazines. I have done a little workshop in the UK two years ago and loved it!

I love nature and am endlessly inspired by its beauty. I enjoy ballroom dancing, writing poetry, watching movies, hiking, riding my kayak and spending the summer in the Austrian lake district where I try to escape the heat and noise of the city.

I have started my creative hobby and blogging about it on my blog Von Pappe II back in 2012 and I am still amazed by where this has been taking me. I keep finding tons of awesome inspiration by other creative souls all around the globe and I really hope to be able to give back a little with my art and inspire others the way they inspire me.

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I was so delighted to hear that the theme for June's challenge is "Canvas" - I LOVE working on canvases as a substrate - be it the ordinary way or flipped over to use them for creating shadow boxes. And I love the texture and feel of it! This time I decided to use a cut to size plain canvas strip alongside some gorgeous Calico Craft Parts on a small raw canvas.

My project was mainly inspired by our renovating and swapping rooms in our flat during the last weeks - after feeling quite sick and weak for years now (after being diagnosed with Hashimotos quite late) I had come to think that I couldn't do anything that exhausting anymore - but I was proven wrong! Totally wrong!

After over a week of painting walls, climbing up and down ladders, carrying heavy stuff, mounting and de-mounting furniture and such I found that I felt veeery exhausted of course - but in a good way! (I found muscles in places where I had almost forgotten I had some).

So I promised myself to have more faith in the future and not give in to chronic illness that easy anymore. Hence this little canvas with my new motto (and of course the loads of white paint I had used to paint the walls in our flat inspired the style of my project too).

So I started out with a cut to size canvas strip that I had distressed around the edges and then glued to my canvas using a heavy glue and creating folds. To find out where my folds needed to be I had first placed all my Calico Craft Parts I wanted to use on this piece in their right spots.

Once the canvas strip was stuck in place properly I glued the MDF parts on too and let everything dry.

Next I went in with some special glue to use with my gilding flakes and applied it randomly to the glued on wood shapes. When the glue had dried to the touch I carefully stippled on the flakes using a soft brush (and trying not to breathe too hard).

Only after the glue had thoroughly dried I used a stipple brush to remove the excess flakes by gently scrubbing them off.

Using a small palette knife I added some DecoArt media Texture Sand Paste here and there - also partially on top of the gilded wood shapes!

After that had dried I scraped on some dark brown acrylic paint with the same palette knife.

Then I decided to be daring and generously applied some heavy body white Gesso in various spots with an old and worn bristle brush to create a lot of texture and a worn look.

Time to go in with another layer of gilding flakes and also some white DecoArt media Antiquing Cream to tone down some of the spots that I found were too dark or prominent.

Some tiny sprinkles of more brown acrylic paint were added with the splatter brush.

DecoArt Gold Rush Metallic Lustre was used to paint the edges of my canvas. I used my fingertip and smudged the metal paint on quite randomly - not aiming for perfect coverage.

To finish up my piece I added my word sticker and some tiny letter cubes (that are normally used to create little bracelets with friends' names on them). I glued them to my canvas with matte Decou-Page. Done!

This close up shows how generously I applied the white heavy body Gesso and what a fantastic texture that gave! I even made sure I smudged some across the letter cubes to "fuse" them with the rest of the piece.

Sometimes art is about concealing and/or revealing precious things and thus give meaning to your piece. It isn't always necessary that everything and every step you took to create your piece is still visible in the end - the layers you've created are there and always will be and will give depth and life to your piece. So they are much needed steps on a creative journey (and mostly our creative journeys lead us to ourselves, right?). And sometimes the preciousness of things becomes even more visible and sensible when they are partially hidden away from sight, slightly "damaged" or stained.

I so hope that you like my little canvas and that it even may give a little faith to others too. Take care and have more faith!

Claudia

xxx

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On my Claudia this is one extraordinary project using canvas in a wonderful and unique way. I would never have thought of pleating it like this to create divisions to add your shapes and words and everything has been wonderfully textured, coloured and painted with all the mediums you added. I love the use of the gilding flakes to create such magnificent areas of depth and shiny colour that add such a regal touch to the finished piece. Thank you so much for being our Guest Creative Guide and for sharing something about you as well as this brilliant creation.

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So there is still time to enter our Canvas challenge, there are not so many entries this month but the projects entered already are fabulous - if you would like to try your hand at winning a $25 voucher from

then please show us how you have used canvas on a project and share it on the challenge post here.
YOU STILL HAVE TWO WEEKS TO ENTER - because this is a five Friday month so on the 30th June we will have one of our Tag Friday posts for you too.

20 comments:

Simply brilliant, Claudia. Your pleated canvas strip is a stroke of genius, and of course I love the incredible texturing and antiquing of the piece. What a potent message for yourself within the words too. It's fantastic to have you along for the ride this month.Alison x

A superb project Claudia, full of really inspiring ideas, and with such a powerful message, both to yourself and to the rest of us!The effect of the canvas strip is genius, such a cool idea, and the gilding flakes make for the perfect contrast to the other textures in this piece, - a stunning creation and thanks so much for guesting with us here at AVJ!

Claudia, your canvas is absolutely stunning! The canvas strip is such a clever addition, you have achieved some wonderful depth and dimension with it and your gilding, painting and stippling! Your message to yourself is brilliant and I am so pleased that you achieved what you set out to do, in your home, you should indeed, be very proud of yourself!! Hugs, Anne xx

Thank you all so much for having me and for the kind words, Sandy, Alison, Astrid and Anne! I really loved creating this piece for this wonderful challenge and being part of the journey! Hugs,Claudia xxx

Claudia this is absolutely fantastic. I adore the folds you added, they add so much interest to the design. The flakes work beautifully with the overall design and the texture is a delight . Absolutely fantastic post and I loved reading more about you. Hugs. Tracy x

Claudia, you are AMAZING! And so is your canvas! Your pleated canvas strip is a genius creative move, and I love antiquity you have achieved! Great quote and presented on one of the most amazing pieces of artwork I've laid eyes on! Thank you so much for being our Guest and for sharing a little bit about you! Your baby photo is adorable! Hugs!

Welcome Claudia . So lovely to have you here today. Your canvas is absolutely brilliant in both design and execution. Love the canvas folds creating division between your perfectly laid out craft parts and poignant words. Fab texture and such a great contrast between the rough appearance of the gesso and the opulence of the gilding flakes. Your closing paragraph - I hear you. hugs Amanda xx

Hi Claudia x so lovely to have you here and I absolutely adore this amazing canvas. The details and touches make this pretty special and I love the aged effect you have created. Stunning techniques and tips and full of inspiration xx Sending you my best wishesAnnie xx

What a creative and beautiful canvas you created Claudia! I love the depth you achieved with that pleated piece and all of your additions - what a lovely way to remind yourself to believe in your abilities! thank you so much for joining us here at AVJ! Julia xx

Claudia, your layers and dept on this project are tremendous! I adore the use of megaflake and natural colors. The pleats are so perfect and make the coolest frame for your letters. The sentiment is perfect! Hugs, Autumn